Quotes & Sayings About Shakespeare

Love's night is noon. — William Shakespeare

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that's what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.
The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That's where you are. You've got to keep both going. As Novalis said, 'The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet. — Joseph Campbell

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in's own house. — William Shakespeare

Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream — William Shakespeare

It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught as men take diseases, one of another. — William Shakespeare

What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,
As calling home our exiled friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,
Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life; this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace
We will perform in measure, time, and place. — William Shakespeare

When I was at drama school in the U.K., I was there for two and a half years, and we did one week of television and film. It's right before you leave. It's like, 'We've taught you Chekhov and Shakespeare; you are likely to be in a washing-up soap-liquid commercial.' — James Callis

But DNA isn't really like that. It's more like a script. Think of Romeo and Juliet, for example. In 1936 George Cukor directed Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer in a film version. Sixty years later Baz Luhrmann directed Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in another movie version of this play. Both productions used Shakespeare's script, yet the two movies are entirely different. Identical starting points, different outcomes. — Nessa Carey

No, take more! What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! This double worship, Where [one] part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom, Cannot conclude but by the yea and no Of general ignorance - it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore beseech you - You that will be less fearful than discreet; That love the fundamental part of state More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer A noble life before a long, and wish To jump a body with a dangerous physic That's sure of death without it - at once pluck out The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonor Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state Of that integrity which should become't; Not having the power to do the good it would, For th' ill which doth control't. — William Shakespeare

By recycling pre-existing material, Shakespeare seemed to endorse a view common in his time, which has become even more entrenched in the 400 years since: that all the truly essential stories are already in the bag. — Michel Faber

Give obedience where 'tis truly owed. — William Shakespeare

If we want to resist the powers that threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom, we must be clear what is at stake," he said. "Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, no Lister." Freedom was a foundation for creativity. — Walter Isaacson

Shakespeare has way too many lines. My ideal theatre piece is about 40 minutes long with no interval. — Daniel Craig

A feast of languages — William Shakespeare

So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by. — William Shakespeare

And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.
None does offend - none, I say, none. I'll able 'em.
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician seem
To see the things thou dost not. — William Shakespeare

In school I really loved Shakespeare, and I participated in a country-wide Shakespeare competition. — Aya Cash

For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still don't have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while we're satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong. — Scott Berkun

Farewell, bastard. — William Shakespeare

You learn from mistakes, but Shakespeare is one big non mistake isn't he? He just got everything right really. — Janet Suzman

O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! — William Shakespeare

I can say little more than I have studied, and that question's out of my part. — William Shakespeare

I'm an infant with Shakespeare; I'm kind of learning how to walk. I am trying to decipher the code, you know? I do my research. And I get a clear understanding of what the language is. It is a tremendous process I have to go through as I am sure all actors do, finding the gems hidden in his language. — Ruben Santiago-Hudson

If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. — William Shakespeare

No reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head. — William Shakespeare

When you study, as I did, every theatrical beginning in this country, none of them have been greeted well. The Royal Shakespeare Company was a disaster, Peter Hall was a disaster, Richard Eyre was a disaster, Trevor Nunn was always a disaster. — Kevin Spacey

[I] must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words. — William Shakespeare

I'm not in the Shakespeare stakes. I have no ambition. — Ian Fleming

And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? — William Shakespeare

You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness. For your own gifts, make yourselves praised: — William Shakespeare

Then with the losers let it sympathize,
For nothing can seem foul to those that win. — William Shakespeare

Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company. — William Shakespeare

His injury the gaoler to his pity. — William Shakespeare

O war! thou son of Hell! — William Shakespeare

'Tis sweet to kiss a girl on Spring's first day, but only half so sweet as 'tis to kiss a girl on her bootyhole. — William Shakespeare

Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? — William Shakespeare

Now, infidel, I have you on the hip! — William Shakespeare

Like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a' was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. — William Shakespeare

Therein, ye gods, ye make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.
Nor stony wall, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit:
But life being weary of these worldly bars
Never lacks power to dismiss itself. — William Shakespeare

England is safe, if true within itself. — William Shakespeare

There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul will pity me. — William Shakespeare

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift; Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat, I'll tell thee thou dost evil. — William Shakespeare

Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion — William Shakespeare

If we shadows have offended,
Know but this and all is mended.
That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear,
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding, but a dream. — William Shakespeare

Yet Malone, remarkably, was a model of restraint compared with others, such as John Payne Collier, who was also a scholar of great gifts, but grew so frustrated at the difficulty of finding physical evidence concerning Shakespeare's life that he began to create his own, forging documents to bolster his arguments if not, ultimately, his reputation. He was eventually exposed when the keeper of mineralogy at the British Museum proved with a series of ingenious chemical tests that several of Collier's "discoveries" had been written in pencil and then traced over and that the ink in the forged passages was demonstrably not ancient. It was essentially the birth of forensic science. This was in 1859. — Bill Bryson

There is no sure foundation set on blood, No certain life achieved by others' death. — William Shakespeare

If you know your Bible and your Shakespeare and can shoot craps, you have a liberal education. — Tallulah Bankhead

And I will make it felony to drink small beer. — William Shakespeare

Now put your shields before your hearts and fight / With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, my fellows! — William Shakespeare

Read o'er this And after, this, and then to breakfast with What appetite you have. — William Shakespeare

Come away, come away, Death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath,
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it!
My part of death no one so true did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strewn:
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.
A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where
Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there! — William Shakespeare

For youth is bought more oft than begged or borrowed. — William Shakespeare

Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them. — William Shakespeare

[Judith Shakespeare] lives in you and in me [ ... ] she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. — Virginia Woolf

Keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key. — William Shakespeare

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. — William Shakespeare

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. — William Shakespeare

You aren't in the ivy halls of your miserable literature pursuit now. Without wasting more time, will thou cometh to the pointeth? Dost thou wanteth us to stayeth or leaveth? — Pawan Mishra

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. — William Shakespeare

Now the melancholy of God protect thee, and the tailor make thy doublet of changable taffata, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere, for that's it, that always makes a good voyage of nothing. — William Shakespeare

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better. — William Shakespeare

Everyone feels loss and love and laughter. That's what connects humanity. It's why I love Shakespeare. — Stephanie Beatriz

When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around. — Ken Kesey

One of the things that gives me a lot of pleasure about both the solo show and the book is that it tells people about my dad. He really was an important man. He was a kind of pioneer of regional theater. He was the first American producer to ever produce all of Shakespeare plays. — John Lithgow

The undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on. — William Shakespeare

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. — William Shakespeare

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated — William Shakespeare

I like Shakespeare. I like some of his work a lot. — Arthur Phillips

In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. — William Shakespeare

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. — Oscar Wilde

Lady, you know no rules of charity, Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses. — William Shakespeare

CARDINAL PANDULPH You hold too heinous a respect of grief. CONSTANCE He talks to me that never had a son. — William Shakespeare

The will of man is by his reason sway'd; — William Shakespeare

A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain. — William Shakespeare

So distribution should undo excess, and each man have enough. — William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is all big themes, like the most amazing love, or the most scary war. — Anna Torv

In my prayers every day, which are a combination of Hebrew prayers and Shakespeare and Sondheim lyrics and things people have said to me that I've written down and shoved in my pocket, I also say the name of every person I've ever known who's passed on. — Mandy Patinkin

When Xena finished I just really wanted to work with Shakespeare's material. — Renee O'Connor

No writer besides Shakespeare has created more memorable characters attached to vices and virtues. In even their least sympathetic characters, one senses a kind of helplessness to passion quivering between the poles of good and evil. — Roger Rosenblatt

As a genius St. Paul cannot be compared with either Plato or Shakespeare, as a coiner of beautiful similes he comes pretty low down in the scale, as a stylist his name is quite obscure--and as an upholsterer: well, I frankly admit I have no idea how to place him. — Soren Kierkegaard

As Shakespeare said, there's nothin' cooler than droppin' the 'g's off of gerunds! — Stephen Colbert

They say, the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony;
Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain;
For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. — William Shakespeare

O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been. — William Shakespeare

I strive for what you do find in Shakespeare's work - that there is a definite humanity and a definite character behind the writing in the sonnets, and it's very real because it's so deeply personal. I try to aspire to that in what I do. — Rufus Wainwright

So the Bawdy Bluestocking was the proprietress of her own shop, selling lurid novels to ladies in the front and more esoteric fare in the back, from the looks of the shelves around him. He spied Pope and Crabbe, Shakespeare, of course, and names he did not recognize at all. He wondered how she chose her stock and where it came from. She must spend her days in endless research. The thought was unaccountably lovely to him. — Evelyn Pryce

But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. — William Shakespeare

For Russians, to whom Pushkin's poem 'Eugene Onegin' is sacred text, the ballet's story and personae are as familiar and filled with meaning as, for instance, 'Romeo' and 'Hamlet' are for us. Russians know whole stretches of it by heart, the way we know Shakespeare and Italians know Dante. — Robert Gottlieb

The better part of valour, is discretion. — William Shakespeare

Women are as roses, whose fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour. — William Shakespeare

Don't be too precious about your craft ... there's only 26 letters and 12 notes, and Shakespeare and Beethoven said it all better than any of us ever will — David Foster

Shame to him whose cruel striking, kills for thoughts of his own liking. — William Shakespeare

The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet. — William Shakespeare

Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Thou talk'st of nothing." "True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasty; Which is as thin of substance as the air; And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face t the dew-dropping south. — William Shakespeare

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing — William Shakespeare

One half of me is yours, the other half is yours,
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours. — William Shakespeare

Clown: Good Madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia: Good Fool, for my brother's death.
Clown:I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.
Olivia:I know his soul is in heaven, Fool.
Clown: The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. — William Shakespeare

The best decision I made at NYU was joining the Shakespeare ensemble. It literally led to everything I did after that. It gave me the kind of confidence I really needed. — Jesse L. Martin

It offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, 9 periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very 10 rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the 11 most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable 12 dumb shows and noise. I — William Shakespeare

Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift as tardy as too slow. — William Shakespeare